15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
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Hey, y'all. I'm pretty new to the realm of astro stacking and am still learning. I've been reading that having a dark frame library is a helpful tool, and I was just wondering how accurate the temperature has to be. If the temperature during light frame shooting is 60 degrees, would a set of darks that were taken at 55 or 65 degrees do the job, or does the temperature have to be exact? Thanks!
That depends very much on the dark current charasteristics of the sensor. What camera do you have?
You may want to look up the specs of the sensor and see if it is relevant. Having said that, DSLR cameras generally do not have active cooling for the sensors. This means that during a night of shooting, the temperature of the sensors in general increases due to all electronics at work. I don't know how to deal with that since I don't shoot with a DSLR camera.
A non-cooled sensor is a bit tricky. But what some do is to make a library depending on the outside temperature. Like a masterdark for every 5 oC difference. I didn't do much photography during summertime, but in wintertime my DSLR sensor easily reached about 30 oC anyway during intense use. Personally I ended up going for a masterdark for the winter and summer, together with a bad pixel map.
